


Savage

by inoubliable



Series: Skin&Earth [3]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Biphobia, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Bisexuality, Boys Being Boys, Boys Kissing, Coming Out, Eddie-centric, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, gay AS FUCK Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 22:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12518032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoubliable/pseuds/inoubliable
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is twelve years old. He's kissed for the first time. And then kissed again.--"You're bisexual." Eddie has never said the word out loud before, and it feels a little taboo, but it also feels like a weight off his chest. "You like boys and girls. It isn't weird, and it isn't gross, and you aren't selfish because of it. You aren't dirty or disgusting. You're Richie Tozier, and you're my best friend. I'm Eddie Kaspbrak, and I'm an idiot. I get it."





	Savage

**Author's Note:**

> "What do you do when a man don't love you?  
> He takes the sun from the sky above you.  
> How do you fix the damage?  
> How do you break the habit?"  
> -[Savage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyM8pMH2OF0), Lights

Eddie Kaspbrak is twelve years old.

It's the worst year of his life (so far).

Richie Tozier has a girlfriend.

Her name is April Cunningham and, objectively, she's nice enough. Pretty, even, which makes Richie's overgrown teeth and coke bottle glasses even more hilarious by comparison.

But she's not one of _them_ , and Eddie can't help but feel like the solid ground he knew and trusted has been washed out from underneath his feet.

"You sh-sh-should be p-proud of him," Bill says, because Bill is a Good Guy and isn't capable of holding a grudge, not even when Richie ditches them for the third time that week.

"You should be happy he's leaving us alone," Stan says, because the only person Richie irritates more than Eddie is Stan.

"You should _see_ her, man," Richie says, because he talks about April like she's some unearthly ethereal being, and that's the worst part.

Eddie isn't _jealous_ , no matter what Richie thinks. He's annoyed. His feelings are hurt. He thought Richie was like him. He thought that their little group was impenetrable, that they were above stupid things like dating and _girls_.

Eddie is not at all interested in girls.

"She has the softest lips," Richie sighs dreamily. "She smells like cotton candy."

Eddie lies in bed and tries to picture it, but cotton candy makes his stomach hurt and he finds himself thinking about Richie instead: about the way he smells like that stupid cologne he stole from the drugstore, about how his lips are perpetually bitten and chapped. He wonders if April minds. She must not, because she lets Richie kiss her.

Eddie isn't jealous.

He just doesn't understand.

"Wanna hang out after school?" Richie asks him after second block, one of two classes they share. "Me and April–"

"I don't want to hang out with you and April," Eddie says, prickly and irritated.

Richie looks surprised, which is surprising in itself, because Eddie hasn't expressed any interest at all in Richie's girlfriend and their stupid relationship. In fact, Eddie has staunchly refused to talk to Richie since they hung out two days before and all Richie wanted to do was wax poetic about April's hair and mouth and the short skirt she wore last week.

"Why not?"

"You can't have everything, Richie!" Eddie bursts out, which isn't at all what he meant to say but something he's certainly been thinking. "You can't hang out with April all the time and expect me to be your third wheel! You _ditched_ me! I'm not just going to sit around and pretend like I'm happy for you!"

Richie's eyes look even more enormous than usual. Eddie realizes he's never yelled at Richie before, not seriously. He feels simultaneously proud and ashamed of his outburst.

Eddie darts into his third class before either of them can say anything else. It's English, and blessedly not one of the classes he shares with Richie. Stan is the only one of his friends who has third-period English, and when he files in a few minutes later, he's smiling.

"I saw Richie in the hall and he didn't even say hi. Do you think he lost his voice?" Stan sounds ridiculously hopeful about the idea. Eddie feels abruptly terrible.

He plans to apologize at lunch, even if it means he has to face April and Richie holding hands across the table. But then, when the bell rings and he lets the between-classes crowd sweep him into the cafeteria, Richie isn't sitting with April and her friends. He's at their regular table, beside Bill, where he has sat for years, where he has been missing from for weeks. Eddie almost loses his nerve and wants more than anything to skip lunch altogether so he can hide in the bathroom, but it's just _Richie_. He's not going to hide from Richie.

He sits on the bench opposite his friends and immediately busies himself with his lunchbox so he doesn't have to say anything first.

"Hiya, Eds," Richie says, chipper, like nothing ever happened.

"R-R-Richie and A-April br-broke up," Bill says. Eddie drops the apple he freed from his bag. Richie shoves Bill's shoulder.

"I wanted to tell him, you jerk!"

"S-Sorry," Bill says, but he looks rather pleased with himself. It's not often that he manages to get the news out first, what with his stutter and general aversion to gossip.

Eddie wants to ask why, but Stan slides into the seat beside him then. "I overheard Hannah telling Diane in the hall that Richie broke up with April," he says, unzipping his lunch box, pulling out a neatly folded square napkin which he opens and sets carefully on his lap. Hannah and Diane are April's best friends. Sure enough, when Eddie chances a peek in their direction, they're both already glaring back, flanking April, who has her cheek resting heavily in her palm. She looks rather put-out. Eddie feels a flash of pleasure and then immediate guilt. He looks back at his own lunch and doesn't say anything.

"So?" Richie says after a few seconds of silence.

Eddie chances a glance up and realizes Richie is staring at him.

"So what?"

Richie rolls his eyes.

"Are we cool now, or what?"

Stan looks back and forth between Eddie and Richie several times. "Really? You broke up with April for Eddie?" He doesn't sound upset about it, but he sounds a little bewildered. Bill looks equally confused, his eyebrows furrowed.

"No!" Eddie says, almost as quickly as Richie says, "Yes." They look at each other for a few long seconds, both apparently unwilling to change their answer. Eddie groans, exasperated. "I wasn't asking you to _break up with her_ , I was just..."

"It's fine, Eds," Richie says with a wave of his hand, like Eddie ruining his first real relationship means absolutely nothing. Eddie doesn't actually know what it means, but he's pretty sure it means _something_. "Girls are nice and all, but I like boys, too." He winks, and Eddie feels the back of his neck get hot. He doesn't know why he's embarrassed, because Richie says stupid stuff like that all the time, and it makes him feel a little annoyed that Richie is making this a joke, like _always_.

"You can't do that," he mutters, and he means that Richie can't just break up with April because Eddie had a minor mental breakdown, but what comes out is, "You can't like both."

His friends don't say anything, and when he looks up from his lunch, they're all staring at him.

"W-Why not?" Bill asks. He doesn't sound like he's challenging Eddie; it's more like he's actually curious.

But Richie _laughs_ , and Eddie feels his hackles rise.

"Because it's _selfish_ ," he says, voice louder than he means for it to be. "And it's _greedy_. I mean, come on, how much attention does someone _need_?"

Richie stops laughing. He looks suddenly like he's been slapped.

"I mean, you're either gay or you're not, right?" Eddie continues, almost unable to stop himself. "And why would you even want to like boys? It's _gross_." He's churning out all of the horrible, mean things his mother has ever said about homosexuals, and the words taste bad in his mouth.

None of it is as terrible as the look on Richie's face.

"It isn't a choice," Richie says, voice quieter than it's ever been, but shaking badly. He stands up and starts to pack up his lunch bag with short, jerky, agitated movements. He's blinking rapidly behind his glasses, and Eddie realizes with a swift, sick wave of horror that Richie is about to cry. "I'd say 'fuck you,' Kaspbrak, but that might be too _gay_ for you."

He leaves before Eddie can manage an apology, his head down and his shoulders hunched. Eddie stares after him even when he disappears out the door, too ashamed to look at Bill or Stan.

"D-Do you r-r-really believe that?" Bill asks quietly, after what feels like an eternity.

"I..." Eddie doesn't know what he believes. "It's what my mom says."

"Your mom also says that ice cream causes nightmares," Stan mutters.

Eddie wouldn't usually allow anyone to indicate that his mother is capable of being wrong, but he doesn't feel like alienating another one of his friends. He eats the rest of his lunch in silence. Bill and Stan try to draw him into their chatter, but the conversation feels flat and tense, like they're both waiting for Eddie to explode again. He excuses himself before the bell rings and slinks through the empty hallways, hoping against hope he'll run into Richie.

He doesn't, and Richie skips the next class they have together, which is the last period of the day. Apparently he has skipped the rest of the day too, according to Bill, who shares most of Richie's afternoon classes. The ache in Eddie's gut gets sharper.

Eddie bikes home alone when the final bell rings. Richie usually accompanies him, but Eddie thinks maybe that isn't going to happen again. The ride is boring and lonely without Richie. Eddie doesn't think he could possibly feel any worse. He considers biking past his house and across the train tracks to the Toziers', but his mother is waiting for him on the front porch, calling him inside and demanding to know where his sweater is. It's just now fall and crisp out but not _cold_ , and his long sleeved shirt feels like more than enough.

"You're going to get sick!" his mother frets, ushering him inside.

She's wrong. He doesn't get sick.

He can't help but wonder if she's misguided about anything else.

* * *

It's been two weeks and Richie hasn't talked to him once without prompting. It's the longest they've ever gone without speaking. Eddie has thought up a thousand different apologies, and he's even attempted to give a couple of them.

Richie always says the same thing.

"It doesn't mean anything when you don't _get_ it."

The thing is, Eddie doesn't understand what he's supposed to get. Which is the whole problem. It's like a paradox, a riddle. It makes his head hurt.

He goes through a million different scenarios.

Maybe Richie really is gay, and he's upset that Eddie outed him. It makes sense, except Richie likes women. Like, _really_ likes women. He has a huge poster of a half-naked, smirking Samantha Fox on his bedroom wall, right above his bed.

Maybe Richie is upset that Eddie said he likes attention. Richie _does_ , they all know it, but he gets weirdly sensitive when people bring it up. Eddie understands, sort of. He personally hates attention, but he has a mother who wants to know every detail of his life. He's not sure Richie's parents even know what grade he's in.

Maybe Richie's actually bisexual.

Eddie didn't even know there was a word for it, but he's been doing some covert reading at the public library, and that's apparently what it's called when someone likes girls and boys. It isn't a new thing. One of the books he found said that it's been around since ancient Greece. He didn't get to read as much of that one as he would have liked to because the librarian had been hovering, but he reads enough to realize he really needs to apologize to Richie and make it stick.

It also makes him realize he knows next to nothing about his own sexuality.

He never really thought about it. He has his friends; why would he need anyone else? But all of this research has made him wonder.

There's a girl in his first period named Beverly Marsh. Her hair is very red and her face is very freckled and Eddie thinks she's very pretty. He has mostly thought this in a factual way, purely logic-based, the same way he thinks Bill is strong and Stan is serious, but now he thinks maybe Beverly is someone he could want. Romantically, that is.

But whether he wants her or not, he needs her.

Rumor has it, Beverly has kissed a bunch of boys in their grade. She has apparently kissed even more boys in the grades above them.

The point is, she has done a lot of kissing.

Eddie hasn't ever kissed anyone.

He skips lunch and finds her behind the gym, smoking a cigarette. Her hair is braided loosely to one side and her purple tights have a run in them. She looks cool and unbothered, and very intimidating. Eddie almost turns right back around, but his shadow falls across her and she raises her head. She looks very surprised to see him.

"Eddie Kaspbrak," she says. Something about her knowing his name emboldens him. He holds his ground.

"Hello, Beverly."

She extends a hand and gestures for him to sit beside her. He doesn't, only because she's sitting on the ground and the thought of dirt and worms and cigarette butts makes his already nervous stomach upset. She rolls her eyes and stands instead.

"I need a favor," he says quickly, before he can lose his nerve.

Beverly pauses in brushing off the back of her dress, staring at him. He realizes abruptly that he's said maybe five sentences to her since first grade.

"What's in it for me?" she asks. She sounds more curious than unkind.

Eddie, expecting the question, fumbles with his fanny pack, digging out the crumpled pack of Winstons he nabbed from the drugstore. The pocket of his little bag is otherwise empty. He didn't want the nicotine to stain his things.

Beverly looks instantly more interested. "What's the favor?"

Eddie holds the cigarettes out, pinching the packet carefully between his thumb and forefinger, and takes a deep breath. "I need you to kiss me."

Her eyebrows practically disappear into her fiery hair. "Excuse me?"

Eddie wishes she would just take the stupid cigarettes. She could just have them at this point, no kiss required. He'd run away if only he knew what to do with them.

"I need you," he says again, voice quavering, "to kiss me."

Beverly blinks at him – once, twice, very slowly – and then smiles. "Okay."

Eddie's pulse hammers and he very nearly bolts, cigarettes be damned, but Beverly darts in like a striking snake and holds his face still with a hand on his cheek, her breath against his lips. He thinks suddenly, frantically, about all of the germs there are in a human mouth, but before he can back away she's kissing him, an insistent press of soft lips.

Beverly doesn't smell sweet, like Richie claims April did. She smells a lot like ash and a little like soap – the sterile kind, unscented. Her lips aren't really soft, but they aren't rough either. Mostly, Beverly is neither thrilling nor disgusting. She pulls away from him and Eddie is left distinctly unimpressed. That's what kissing is like? _That's_ what Richie abandoned them for? No wonder he wasn't very bothered about ending things with April.

Beverly looks like she might lean in again, so Eddie backs out of her reach. "Thank you!" he says, a little breathlessly, and all but throws the Winstons at her.

He makes it back inside before the end of lunch. His friends are all picking at the remains of sandwiches and the crumbs at the bottom of chip bags, and they all look up when he rushes into the cafeteria. He hurriedly unzips his lunch bag and stuffs a few apple slices into his mouth so he doesn't have to explain where he was.

When he glances around, Richie is staring at him. Eddie feels himself flush, sure that there's some secret code, some initiation that allows those who have had their first kiss to smell when it happens to others.

 _I'm trying_ , Eddie thinks fervently in Richie's direction. _I don't get it yet, but I'm trying._

Richie doesn't give any indication that he understands, but he doesn't look away for a long moment, and that's almost good enough.

* * *

It's been one week since Eddie kissed Beverly, and he's thought about it every day since.

Not in a pining sort of way. Not in a lovesick sort of way. Not even because he's confused.

Eddie has never been more sure of anything. He did not enjoy kissing Beverly Marsh.

It's not that Beverly isn't lovely. She's beautiful by any standard, and she's smart, and she's tough. Eddie thinks that if he had to kiss any girl, he's glad it was her.

The thing is, he doesn't want to kiss a girl.

Girls are soft, and pretty, and Eddie likes the way their skirts swish around their knees, the way their hair looks like silk, the way their lipstick stains their mouths.

But Eddie doesn't like girls. At least, not romantically.

The realization isn't as earth-shattering as he thinks it probably should be. It sort of feels like something he's known all along. Girls never really impressed him. He has always preferred Stan and Bill and Richie.

Which, of course, gives him the worst, most impossible ideas.

He's staying the night at Bill's. It's just the two of them, like it used to be when they were much younger. Georgie is asleep, and so are Bill's parents. They're supposed to be too, but they're lying awake instead, the streetlamp outside the window the only light, making Bill's face look shadowed and mysterious. They are cramped into Bill's small twin bed together. Pretty soon, Bill is going to grow into his lanky limbs and won't be able to share his bed anymore, but for now Eddie is just small enough to fill up the space Bill leaves. They're side by side, face to face, alternating between giggling at and shushing one another.

Eddie waits for a lull in their laughter and then says, quietly, "Bill."

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever kissed anyone?"

Bill shifts a little, maybe uncomfortable with the conversation, more likely just restless. Eddie and Bill have talked about much worse under the cover of night. Eddie knows all of Bill's fears, all of his secrets. He already knows Bill's answer before he says it.

"No."

Eddie takes a deep breath. Then another, and then another. It's a long time before he says anything else, so long that Bill jumps a little when he speaks, probably sure he was asleep.

"Would you kiss me?"

Bill's breath hitches. The sound puts Eddie on edge, makes his skin prickle. His heart is suddenly pounding in his chest, so loud Bill can surely hear it.

"I-I, um," Bill says, and Eddie wants to believe it's not just his stutter, wants to believe that Bill is _nervous_ , wants to believe that the thought of kissing him has Bill's heart fluttering and his hands shaking.

"You don't have to," Eddie says in a rush. "But I want you to."

Bill makes a wounded noise in his throat, like Eddie has struck him at his core. It's his downfall. Bill is a people pleaser. He wants to make people happy, even if it's at his own expense. Eddie opens his mouth to take it back, to say _only if you want to_ , but before he can say anything, Bill's mouth is against his, warm and a little wet, and they're kissing.

It's not at all like kissing Beverly Marsh.

Bill is less insistent than Beverly, but no less passionate. He kisses like it's both his first and his last, his hand coming around to cradle the back of Eddie's head. Eddie's brain goes a little fuzzy. He throws his arm around Bill, grasping at the back of his sleep shirt, trying to ground himself. Their mouths part for a beat, then slide back together. Eddie's toes curl.

He must make a sound because Bill breaks away from him, shushing him, laughing. "You're g-gonna wake my p-parents up," he whispers. He's smiling, and his face looks a little flushed in the muted yellow light. His lips, already pouty, seem the slightest bit swollen. Looking at him makes a little electric shock shoot down Eddie's spine.

"Sorry," Eddie manages, but he isn't sorry at all.

There's silence for awhile. Eddie closes his eyes, because he isn't sure he can look at Bill without wanting to kiss him again.

"W-Was th-that... I m-mean, d-did I...?" Bill stops, his stutter frustrating him. Eddie cracks open an eye and watches Bill screw his face up, forcing the words out. "D-Did you l-li-like it?"

And, oh, Eddie adores him.

"It was perfect," Eddie whispers, and kisses him again, right on the corner of his mouth. He would kiss Bill full-on, but he isn't sure he'd be able to stop. "I liked it a lot."

Bill's smile is radiant even in the dark.

"G-Goodnight, Eddie," Bill says.

"Goodnight, Bill," Eddie sighs.

He lays awake long after Bill falls asleep, listening to Bill's breathing, his heart still racing.

* * *

He finds Richie the next morning.

"I get it," he says, in a rush. "I'm so sorry. I take back everything I said. I was such a jerk. You deserve to be mad at me for, like, the rest of the year. But I get it now."

Richie raises an eyebrow, something Eddie is sure he has practiced at home in front of the mirror. He doesn't say anything, waiting expectantly.

Eddie takes a deep breath.

"You're bisexual." Eddie has never said the word out loud before, and it feels a little taboo, but it also feels like a weight off his chest. "You like boys and girls. It isn't weird, and it isn't gross, and you aren't selfish because of it. You aren't dirty or disgusting. You're Richie Tozier, and you're my best friend. I'm Eddie Kaspbrak, and I'm an idiot. I get it."

Richie looks at him for a long time. Finally, _finally_ , he smiles. It's a slow thing, like he's defrosting, like he's remembering how to smile at Eddie. Eddie's breath catches at the intensity of it. He stares at Richie's mouth and thinks, a little hazily, about how it felt to kiss Bill. He wonders how it would feel to kiss Richie.

He could do it, he thinks. Richie would let him, probably.

But Eddie only just got him back. The last thing he needs is for Richie to think he's making a bad joke, or that he's Eddie's token queer friend and therefore his only option for experimentation.

So he tears his eyes away and says nothing and lets Richie lead him into the school, arm draped heavily around his shoulders, a warm familiar weight at his side.


End file.
